Idea

No legendary playwrights have come out of the current new play development process. There are great playwrights in the world today but their voices are scattered; their vision diluted; and they earn no respect from either the world at large or the theater community specifically. Playwrights have been infantilized, encroached upon, and beaten down. To write anything of value is almost a victory. And, the support doesn't exist for it.

I'm not angry. I'm just making some bold, declaritive statements about the disappointment I feel when I assess the theater world today -- a world which I love deeply.

All the great playwrights we admire from the past were nurtured by an entirely different system. They all worked often with the same people, often within a company, often with devotion to their vision over time. Shakespeare. Chekhov and the Moscow Art Theater. Even Arthur Miller and Tenessee Williams had a certain support from institutions in New York at a certain point.

Obviously, the world has changed a lot since then. Maybe no writer for the theater can matter today. The theater world isn't as centralized as it once was -- what with the rise of regional theater. Whatever. This isn't a disertation. I don't feel the need to prove my point.

Here's my idea:

Theatres, in New York and regionally, of a size that can afford this, should hire playwrights on five year contracts with a commitment from both parties for three plays. Over five years and three plays, this writer may get the chance to do something fantastic. There should be a commitment to the local community, local ensembles, etc.

One play over one year with a theater (the current grants that do exist, in small doses) isn't enough to get great. Also, it isn't enough to introduce the audience to the playwright. Committing to three plays may alleviate the box office danger of doing new work because 1. You can introduce the writer to the audience with a bang. "We think this person is so interesting we're committed to doing THREE plays. You should come see." and 2. By the second play, the name is no longer unfamiliar to the audience.

The five year program should be non-renewable. After five years of productions at a worthwhile theater, if a writer can't get those works and others produced at other theaters then maybe he or she really isn't good and enough. The writer should have a real career by then where they may not need as much institutional support. It also shouldn't be open to anyone who isn't five years out of grad school (or undergrad). No matter how much potential a writer has they have to be in the world long enough to assimilate the stuff they learned that was valuable and forget the other stuff. And the job shouldn't be open to anyone who already doesn't need the support (big time playwrights who can get their plays produced by good theaters even before they write them).

It's expensive. It's a risk. But what theater-making isn't an expensive risk? And this may be the only way to really start making great new theater -- some intelligent reconciliation of the new theater world we live in with the clearly successful ensemble model of the past.

That's it. . . I can wish can't I?

irony of all ironies is that I still have to doubt that I'd be one of the playwrights who would get one of these jobs. . . how many theaters nationwide do you think, if given some grant support, could support something like this?